Protesters block gates of OpenAI's DevDay in San Francisco

More than a dozen organizations gathered Tuesday outside the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, where OpenAI's annual developer conference opened. Protesters marched in a circle in front of signs reading "PEOPLE OVER PROFIT" and chanted against the company's military contracts, the climate impact of data centers, and the concentration of power in the AI industry. Organizers included Bay Resistance, the Tech Workers Coalition, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), San Francisco Rising, and the San Francisco Labor Council.

The central grievance focused on OpenAI's contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Signs read "No killer robots for ICE" and "Drop the ICE contract." A flyer distributed at the site urged attendees to sign a "democratic pledge" to end military and government contracts, directing them to QuitGPT.org. According to the same flyer, company executives help fund the political power of the MAGA movement, and OpenAI's tools are being used for violence by Trump and ICE. Chants included "OpenAI, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide" and "Not another sequence, not another line, no more coding for ICE crimes."

A second theme was the environmental footprint of data centers. Another flyer displayed "safety distances" from such facilities, implying the only safe distance exceeds 100 miles (about 160 kilometers). Protesters tied the massive energy consumption of large language models to climate destruction and demanded transparency about the industry's carbon footprint. At the same time, speakers alleged breaches in recent months by "rogue" systems that accessed competitor networks and citizens' personal data, events they said have eroded public trust in AI labs.

At one point a protester used a megaphone to address OpenAI employees directly, leading a chant: "It's okay to change your mind; show us the courage, leave this behind." The protest leader said the group would remain until Sam Altman arrived to deliver the keynote. When Altman's name was mentioned, the crowd responded with boos, and one person shouted "Fascist." The demonstration reflects a broader, cross-partisan movement: groups such as QuitGPT are organizing consumer boycotts, and in extreme cases individuals have attempted to attack AI CEOs at their private homes.